Saturday, January 31, 2009

Ring the bells that still can ringForget your perfect offeringThere is a crack in everythingThat's how the light gets in.

-- Leonard Cohen, Anthem

An extremely thoughtful friend sent this to me yesterday and when I read it I was all: FUCK YEAH! It's the sort of sentiment I wish I could read, see, ingest every single day. I'd be a better person; gentler with myself and less of a goddamned bitch.

Friday, January 30, 2009

I think about the moment (moments?) that I went from the young girl who looked in the mirror one day and decided that I would in fact grow up to be pretty *phew* to being the young woman who thought nothing of flinging her head over the edge of the toilet bowl, determined to stay that way.

And now, at 39 My body dysmorphic issues have never really gone away. 3 kids, a bit of therapy, love and admiration from a few hot humans, the stunning devotion of my husband have done their part the mask the issue, to make it sneakier, harder to pin-down, smack around and show it who's boss.

I know enough about the disorder to know it's all about control, my control of my body, my space, my life. My, me, MINE. But like a rather cute therapist from San Francisco once told me: "you're too smart NOT to be crazy". So smart and crazy I sit, horribly uncomfortable in my own skin. It sucks, internets. Truly.

My 8 year old daughter told me last night that a girl in the 4th grade with her is so concerned about her weight that she skips meals!?! At 9 years old. Holy Fuck.

The challenge before me: To not have a starving, puking, self-hating child.

I'm running or walking almost every day now. I'm not complaining in front of the kids about my "Incredible Hulk-ness" and I'm keeping myself off the bathroom floor, for now (It has occurred to me that my disdain for toilet scrubbing and my 4 year old's propensity for getting pee all over the floor may be working to my advantage in this department).

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Coincidentally (?), he's a few days into flat out BARKING at me. Squealing like a pig all up in my grill many, many times a day.

Told my husband, Lincoln's daddy, the main-man running things, the guy who rocked baby loco to sleep in 10 minutes flat last night, that I remember this time with the other babies; this time that we, the booby-liscious-mommies can at equal intervals, calm our babes with our milk & drive them to the brink of INSANITY with it.

This all means, of course, that he is getting way too big. Too big, too big, too big. Like I said: DAMN YOU!

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Hi sweet buddy-man. You're sleeping right now; and why not?! It's 10:00AM, why be so *boring* as to sleep at the other 10:00? You're a renegade, baby, and I love you for it.

These past 2 months with you have been an exquisite pleasure. You are lovely, lovely baby. You smiled at 3 weeks, cooed at 4 and laughed at 5; every day, we are reminded of what a gift you are.

Now, I am not naive enough to think it will remain thusly, you being all lovely and all. I've been around the block *with Penelope* and I KNOW that bad moods can happen to good babies. DUDE. I know.

But for now, you are my delicious milkman, my sweet, sweet guy who loves his mama, is calmed by his papa and who sublimely tolerates diaper changes by his sisters. We're a bunch of lucky, stoned-out of our minds mother-fuckers because of you, Lincoln. Thank you, baby. We needed you.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Not that anyone comments, but if you care to comment, do any of you three fearless readers of mine have a POSITIVE anecdote for me? I need hope. Or millions and millions and millions of dollars so I won't care so much any more about getting reimbursed.

Nothing can make me feel so helpless, so at a loss than when I'm dealing with this business. It is crazy making at its most maniacal. And if I were still the hitting-my-head-on-the-wall type, I'd have one helluva cracked skull and if I weren't a wild-animal-starving nursing mother, I'd be contemplating picking up that eating disorder again. Not kidding.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

So. I've been privately working out more and more what my thoughts are on the election and looming inauguration. I am still thrilled and still a squeamish with said thrilled-ness that we get to get Barack Obama. Holy shit. Barack Obama.

I think a lot about what sort of nasty things will come to a head and what kinds of wonderful forces will repel them. I feel bit the kid in a candy store that I get to live in such a monumentally important point in history.

Back to the nasty things, though. Again, I believe this to be the crux of my own mixed up feelings on whether or not I get to be proud of our next president.

While I really don't think I think that just because I happen to be a white person living in America, that I am equally responsible for the reprehensible things my anscestors did during slavery, I also don't think that just because I happen to be white that I shouldn't get grouped into the herd with fucking yahoos who still perpetuate hate RIGHT NOW. The latter is much trickier for me to peel off.

Here's an email I got from a friend the other day:

"We got through the pediatrician (Phoebe) and the dentist(both kids) with only mild trauma, so I took the kids to the Perkins restaurant in Middletown for lunch to celebrate.

I was thinking, snobbishly, how everyone in the restaurant looked troglodytic, then chastising myself for making assumptions about people based on how they looked. I said something to the kids about how calm they'd been at the dentist's like, "Who's better than you? No one!"

And Phoebe laughed and said, "Well, sometimes some people are better--like Obama!" I felt suddenly self-conscious and worried,then thought I was being paranoid to think that anyone at the restaurant would have a problem with a 5 year-old being excited about Obama. Well. Here are some snatches of the conversation I overheard at the next table:

"I didn't love him, but McCain..."

"Of the four of them, Sarah Palin was the only one qualified...experience...Alaska..."[OK, so far it's just the usual Fox News talking points, nothingrevolutionary.]

"And he's not even American!"[Um...what?]

"Now they're gonna think this evens everythingup..."

"Now one of them is President..."

"The day after the inauguration we're going to bepicking cotton."[Big laughs over this. Sweet Jesus.]

"Someone's gonna whack him."

"Somebody SHOULD whack him."[Then some discussion about what method"somebody" should use. The consensusis reached that explosives would be best, like "atthat federal buildingdown there." Holy fuck. I am in a nightmare. The restof the conversationwas just as lovely.]

When I went to pay and the manager asked how everythingwas, I tried to make a joke about how it was fine except for the racists at the next table and burst out crying, just to add a little embarrassment to the agony.

Why am I always surprised by how awful some people are? Andwhy do I expect stupid people to be embarrassed by their idiocy and not broadcast it publicly?

I feel really scared about how many people in this countrythink EXACTLY the way those guys do. Millions of people. And I don't mean scared for Obama.

That kind of talk--about fearing for his safety--is just adistraction from the big fucking void at the center of this country where a soul should be. I mean scared for me, my kids, and the future of this country. I'm scared by how empowered these people have become, having been pandered to by the anything-for-a-vote end of the Republican party for so long.

I'm scared that so many people believe this line of thinking goes hand-in-hand with loving God and country. I'm scared that Phoebe's going to say something positive about Obama at school next year and get punched in the face for being a n-lover. I am just sick over it.

Going back into my bubble now."

My friend isn't white, she isn't black, but she isn't white. Like me. Like the fucks who wrecked her lunch.

For months and months I carried around a terrible fear that Obama was going to be assassinated; a sick, palpable fear, now I trust his protection more and more and that agony has been replaced by something not so sinister a thought process and I'm grateful for that because what happened in that nasty little restaurant in upstate NY is what I need to focus on, not how I can protect the life of my president and his family. Because I may be a bad-ass, but let's be serious.

I grew up with my grandmother and other family members talking about n-----s and "those people". I went to an integrated school in Boston in the 70's and I witnessed some maniacal hatred. I never want my kids to be a part of anything like that or like what happened at Perkins. And that's what I think Barack Obama is going to bring; he's going to bring the wonderful forces that will wipe away another layer of shit-spewing ignorance.

I am hopeful that Barack Obama, my black president, will make white people into better people.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Very recently I decided I needed to get to know my oldest child. She, being the extremely capable, competent, intelligent, self-sufficient sort, was kind of easy for me to, uhm, ignore. For a while.

Now, it's not as bad as it sounds. Actually, it might be as bad as it sounds. Of course, the child was fed, clothed, kissed, disciplined, loved, encouraged but rarely meaningfully engaged by me, her mother.

Isn't that tragically sad? And I mean "Wuthering Heights" tragic. "Terms of Endearment" sad. Sad like you get when you read a news story that just takes your legs out.

When I realized it, not a small piece of me ignited and in a flash, turned to cinder and will likely cling to some other, still living chunk of me until the day the rest of me dies, as a reminder of what a horrible thing it was: ignoring this girl.

Not a surprise, it took me a few tries to link in to her. My husband, a truly gifted parent, can do this INSTANTLY. I flubbed and stuttered and acted the fool for a few rounds before I felt like I was really getting her and she was letting me get her.

I can't express the relief the terror of the relief I feel that I got my self re-connected to this child prior to the "bus incident". This week I got to tell her that as a mother, as her mother, I know I make a lot of mistakes. I got to tell her that I know I kind of suck sometimes. I also got to tell her that with this thing, this "bus incident", her mother will shine. That this thing, I will get absolutely right. And I will. I am.

She's only 8 years old. She's spectacular. She needs me. ME. Not that nasty crone I send in all too often to fill my slot. I need to take back my role and own the bitch.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Those fucking little bitches. I hate them and their parents. I hate their dogs and their ugly houses. I hate them.

Being the parent of the bullied one puts the heartbreak right up front. Gets the shit over with. And the older they get, the smarter and more aware of the world, the worse that heartbreak is and the less you can do to massage it away. Being the parent of the bullies? They'll get their heartbreak, too. When their loser kids are still living in the basement and eating all the Cheetos past their 30th birthdays.

My kid knows these kids suck, but she wants their friendship anyway. She told me so. "Ma, they're jerks. But I want them to like me", she said.

So today, after three years of their BULLSHIT, one of the little twats PUNCHED MY KID IN THE FACE. Happened in the Thunder Dome, I mean the bus.

I have no big words or fancy ideas to express how I feel on this one. I'm sad and violated and angry and depressed. How do 8 year old girls who live in upstate NY, in apple country for crissakes, get parented to the point that they don't see that punching someone in the face *just because* is wrong? As my equally tweaked out husband said: Where's the filter?

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Been wanting to be here for a while now. I have. But I've been a bit busy. Just ask my boobs and the dust MOUNDS that have overtaken e v e r y t h i n g. Ask my solid food eating children who can count the number of homemade meals that I've cooked for them on one hand. The place is a wreck I tell you! And only one person is to blame: The Milkman

Having a baby around is fucking wild. It's a straight up trip and a half, I tell you. And maybe it's my age, or my planetary alignment or (and this is where I'd put my money, people) or that this particular baby is just that good, but this time, I'm cool as a goddamned cucumber about all of it.

The laundry alone could kill a man. Fugeddabout the dishes, the toilets the aforementioned dust problem... but I don't care! I have a baby! And he is as sweeeeeet as the condensed milk at the bottom of my coffee glass.

Who knew? Not me, I'll certainly cop to that. I was terrified to have this baby and now I'm electrified.